(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a battery replacement type electric bus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a device for attaching and detaching a connector for an electric vehicle of a battery replacement type that automatically attaches and detaches a high-voltage connector during replacement of a battery.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In general, electric vehicles can travel, using an electric motor driven by electric energy charged in a high-voltage battery. Electric vehicles can be classified into a battery powered electric vehicle, a hybrid electric vehicle using both an electric motor and an engine, and a fuel cell electric vehicle.
It is necessary to construct infrastructures for charging by which a battery can be easily charged at anytime and anywhere for revitalization and expansion of use of the electric vehicles and various studies of the electric vehicles have been conducted. However, since plug-in type electric vehicles charges a battery with power, unlike the vehicles using fossil fuel (e.g., gasoline, diesel etc.) or natural gas, consumers are considerably inconvenienced due to the time required to charge the battery and the companies running the charging facilities have no economical efficiency due to the long waiting time.
Therefore, recently, a charging technology that charges a battery in advance without directly supplying power to the battery in electric vehicles, and then replaces the battery with the fully charged battery has been proposed. According to the battery replacement type, since the battery to be charged is replaced with a battery that is fully charged in advance, that battery may be conveniently used without requiring a specific time for charging. For example, an electric bus of a battery replacement type is equipped with a battery mounting module on the top for attaching and detaching a battery. When a battery is replaced by the battery mounting module on the electric bus, a high-voltage connector at the battery and a high-voltage connector at the bus are electrically connected.
However, when the battery is replaced by the battery mounting module on the top of the electric bus of a battery replacement type, the high-voltage connector at the battery and the high-voltage connector are manually connected to the vehicle. Therefore, since the high-voltage connector at the battery and the high-voltage battery on the vehicle are connected manually when the battery is replaced, in the related art, the time required to replace the battery may increase, the cost for replacing the battery increases, and the safety risk may increase.
The above information disclosed in this Bacground section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.